


The Weight of Our Minds

by Le_phoenix



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Descriptions of mental illness, Eventual Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, F/M, Fugitive Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Healer Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter Friendship, Kidnapping, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, NOT a 365 Dni re-write, NOT an 'abuse a girl until she loves you' story, POV Hermione Granger, Post-Canon, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Sexual Content, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhealthy Relationships, descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_phoenix/pseuds/Le_phoenix
Summary: 'I've survived the war', Hermione said to herself. 'I can survive this. Stockholm syndrome isn’t love'.Still coping with the trauma of the Second War, Hermione’s world is turned upside down again when Draco Malfoy- wanted by the Ministry for his role as a Death Eater and looking for leverage- kidnaps and holds her for ransom, making her question what is right and what is real.Based 5 years post war and the events of the Deathly Hallows. Contains dark themes, descriptions of mental illness and violence. NOT a 365 Dni re-write. Please heed the warnings in the tags, and read the A/N.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	1. 1. All was well

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Harry Potter books, movies or the franchise. All rights belong to J.K Rowling.
> 
> Author’s note(s):  
> This author’s note may be quite a long one, but if I can make one request for anyone reading this story, please, PLEASE read the A/N on this first chapter, if none of the rest.  
> I am not a writer that writes dark things. I read them, sure, because I think the HP books, despite the fact they were written predominantly for children, have such a potential for much darker themes. I actually have another, much older ao3 account, in which I was quite a prolific writer in another fandom until about three years ago. That account is known by my friends and family, and I am much more of a comedy/light hearted storywriter there. I wanted to keep this story separate from those.
> 
> But then one day last week, I woke up with this concept in my head, and to be honest, I’m a bit disturbed that I feel I can write it. I originally intended it for a very different fandom, but there’s something I love about Draco/Hermione, and so they’re the characters I chose to use instead. Harry Potter is the first fandom I ever read obsessively, yet it’s taken me until now to write in it, because I don’t want to sully the characters. I hope I do them justice here, because they’re a part of my childhood and I adore them all.
> 
> Getting to the point, this isn’t a happy story, with blurred lines of morality. Hermione and definitely Draco are not clean-cut good characters, but people who have been bruised and traumatised by war in different ways. This story depicts a deeply unhealthy, obsessive relationship that I will point out time and time again is not something to aspire to in real life. Both characters make obviously unsafe and unhealthy decisions. There’s descriptions of PSTD, depression and anxiety disorder, largely drawn on my own experiences. It will have graphic descriptions of violence and abuse, I will add to the tags as I go. The rating is mostly not for sex, but for everything else I just mentioned. Please, please heed the warnings and the tags.
> 
> I’m not entirely happy I’m writing a romantic story involving kidnap and Stockholm syndrome but until I write it, it won’t leave me alone. I feel like I need to also say here that this is not based around 50 shades of grey or that horrible 365 DNI thing everyone is talking about. I have not read/watched either and don’t intend to. 
> 
> Please bear with me, because this first chapter is mostly a character study and creating the scene, and contains Ron/Hermione, which is not the main or end pairing, but plays it's part. I have a rather descriptive style of writing so, er, sorry about that. This story ignores the DH epilogue and everything that comes after that, but does borrow some concepts, as well as some of Draco’s characteristics from the Cursed Child (but nothing else). 
> 
> Beta’d by myself, so all factual mistakes and typos are mine. Please be kind.
> 
> So if I haven’t completely put you off with this A/N, I hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Song inspiration for this chapter: Battlefield by Svrcina.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malfoy, she remembered, with a start. She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror, remembering the way he had looked at her in her dream.
> 
> She hadn’t thought of him in years, and suddenly he was in her nightmare, and he had just come up in her thoughts now.

**CHAPTER ONE**

_Pain. The type that leaves a wound inside your bones, rattling every cell and agonising with every breath. She could scream with it, and she did, but it made it worse because it only made her realise just how helpless she was._

_The pain made her inhuman, reduced to nothing on the cold, bloodless marble floor of Malfoy Manor._

_The pain dulled for a second, a minute. Once it left, she had nothing but vibrating, pulsing horror, so much it was choking her, and she wanted to die in it. Then the pain was back, and Bellatrix Lestrange’s high-pitched laughs filled her brain and her body. Her ears were ringing with the sound of it, so much she could almost smell its acrid, stinking rottenness, like decaying meat. But she couldn’t move, because Lestrange was on top of her, weighing her down, and Hermione was nothing again, nothing on the cold, bloodless marble floor of Malfoy Manor._

_Oh, she would go mad soon, she knew it, insane like Neville’s parents. She would never see her parents again, feel her mother’s warm, thick hug. She would never see Harry or Ron, never see the way Harry’s eyes crinkled when he was happy, or the way Ron’s tongue stuck out when he was concentrating on something. She had wanted them to have the world, because they were everything she had now, in these last seconds until insanity. But they would die here with her, on this fool’s errand put on the back of children, fighting an adult’s war._

_Tears were running down her face, and she didn’t remember how to be embarrassed. She wanted to live. She wanted to live. She had to live-_

_The pain ceased again, and someone was screaming. She didn’t think it was her, but it could’ve been. Her body wasn’t hers anymore. She couldn’t move it, but she could hear Harry now, she was sure of it, and-_

_She opened her eyes, willing them to see something beyond her pain. She thought her vision was clearing but she didn’t remember how to focus, how to see-_

_People were running around her, and her memory was escaping her because she didn’t recognise them. If they would stand still, maybe she could-_

_She blinked once, and she saw him. Malfoy was standing, stock still, in the ruckus of his own drawing room, looking straight at her. His expression was filled with something undeniable, something so strong that, if she could think-_

_Horror. Sheer horror, agony and regret painted his eyes, his eyebrows looked almost as though they couldn’t hold the weight of it. She wanted to say something, but she was so tired. So she just looked at him, and he looked at her._

_She didn’t know Malfoy could feel so much. She didn’t know she could feel so little. She felt nothing at all._

_She wanted to touch that expression on his face. Trace it with her fingers, memorise the lines that were painted on like art, because he looked so beautiful in a way she wasn’t supposed to see, and she didn’t understand why- why she still thought of that expression after so many years-_

_Because Bellatrix Lestrange has been dead for years, and Voldemort was gone and-_

_Someone was pulling at her now, yanking at her head violently and-_

‘Hermione!’

Hermione opened her eyes with a start, her chest heaving as she gasped in breaths. She was going to vomit, she thought, she was, she would-

‘Ron?’, she gasped, colour filling her vision. She was in her bed, bright red blankets surrounding her, Crookshanks at her side. Ron was directly in front of her, worry in his eyes.

She felt cold.

‘You’re at home, Hermione’, he said. ‘It’s the year 2002, Voldemort is dead. You, me and Harry survived. Everyone is okay.’

She breathed. Her head stopped pulsing and she could feel again. Ron rubbed her back.

‘Okay now?’, he said. She nodded.

This was their routine every week or so. They both had nightmares, terrifying things that made them wake up screaming. It happened to Hermione, more than Ron, a lot more. Sometimes, in the nights she lay tossing and turning, she resented him for that.

The healers called it PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There was so much that was different between the muggle and wizarding world, but your brain was your brain, and trauma was damaging.

‘I’m fine’, she said, smiling slightly at his doubtful expression. She moved, trying to get her feet out from under the covers. ‘Really, get off. I need to go to work, I’ll be late!’.

Ron moaned, pulling her back slightly by her waist.

‘Couldn’t you have taken the day off?’, he said, and she wrestled out of his arms, quickly covering herself up with a dressing gown, and hugging herself. ‘You know Harry and I both just got out of a mission…’

After the war both Harry and Ron had decided not to return back to Hogwarts to finish their studies, opting to take up the Ministry’s offer to waive the NEWTS requirement and enter the Auror training scheme, one of the many job related offers that flooded their way. Hermione also got the same offer, but turned it down.

She had always thought she would want to work for the ministry, climbing the ranks because –well, she knew that if she applied herself, she would be able to. But the offers were just gratitude, she knew. All three of them may have some talent, and abilities that had shone in their circumstances, but to accept a job offer borne out of gratefulness just felt wrong to her. Harry and Ron didn’t see it the same way. She didn’t begrudge them that. It made them happy, and in the end of the day if the war had taught her anything, she wanted to see Harry and Ron happy. They were her family now, more than friends.

So she had gone back to Hogwarts by herself, wondering if she had made the wrong decision, her heart in her mouth as the train got closer and closer, the school an ominous mist in the background. So much had happened there. She hadn’t been able to face going back when Harry and Ron had helped McGonagall and everyone else rebuild it, and she still felt a gut-wrenching regret for it. But at the time her nightmares had been so bad, so much that she went days without sleep to try and avoid them. No one knew but Harry and Ron, and she felt ashamed that it was her, and not Harry- who had gone through so much, had even _died_ – or Ron- who had lost a family member and hadn’t chosen any of it but for the love of his friend- that was reacting the worst out of the three of them. She felt like she was ticking every stereotypical box in the world, a female having fits of the vapours and screaming nightmares, needing the help of her male friends.

McGonagall didn’t say anything when she re-entered the school that September, determined to fight through her trepidation, another year older but feeling like the smallest first year there was. _Her smile was so kind,_ Hermione had thought, and she had hated it.

Hogwarts felt so familiar, the only home she had ever known other than that of her parents, and it calmed her. It was the place that had taught her so much, opened an entire world to her that she never knew could ever exist in her wildest dreams. But it was different too; she missed Harry and Ron like they were missing limbs, despite the fact that both of them wrote often, Harry often several times a week. They sent her photographs of themselves goofing off during training sessions, arm in arm as the best friends they were, and her heart swelled with so, so much. She didn’t have the heart to reprimand them for not paying more attention. She knew they would both pass the exams though- despite her often being the reason the two boys ever studied while they were all in school, both of them didn’t need her, not really.

She went through her eighth year relatively peacefully, enjoying the quietness of the classes and the routine of her lesson schedule, even with the sadness that still hung thick in the air. Everyone was moving on, so she moved on too.

But some days were harder than others, she realised, and trauma didn’t go away in a single summer. She still had screaming nightmares, which were more embarrassing and horrifying in a dorm room. But what was worse was the doubt.

She doubted most decisions she made. From little things like whether to have cereal or toast for breakfast, to whether she really wanted to be in a relationship with Ron.

They had kissed during the Battle of Hogwarts. She knew they had, and she had been caught in the moment then, seeking whatever happiness she could, knowing that they could die in the next few hours. She had always felt a special fondness for Ron, in a way that was different from Harry. She thought the world of both of them, and in some ways, they _were_ her world. But Ron made something twist within her, when she saw him smiling at her, standing amongst his siblings. They were from completely different worlds, her a muggle-born with no extensive knowledge of the wizarding world, and him born knowing nothing else. She had a kinship, a siblingship, with Harry because she knew he understood things in her childhood when Ron didn’t.

She always felt the need to connect with him, form some kind of bond with him. Ron and Harry were tied together in some intrinsic way, and she with Harry, but she needed to feel like Ron wasn’t going to slip between her fingers when school was over and everything was finished.

She did love him, she knew. But when she had kissed him, she felt nothing. That was perhaps a harsh word for it- not nothing exactly, just not what she expected. But she felt nothing all the time now, a numbness that came with the nightmares, so maybe that was it?

She didn’t know. But she did know that she wanted Ron in her life, and she wanted the life he could give her. A warm, loving relationship where she wouldn’t doubt herself, where she could heal her mind in comfort and ease. A wizarding family that accepted her and would teach her everything about their world that she couldn’t learn from books. A brother in Harry, because the Weasleys had pretty much adopted Harry in a way Hermione knew they hadn’t with her.

She finished her eighth year with a slightly more peaceful mind and a lot more hope. She loved Hogwarts but it was time to well and truly move on.

Hermione realised she didn’t want to be an auror like the boys, or even work for the Ministry. She decided that, if she couldn’t heal herself, she would heal everyone else. 

That same summer, under the exasperated glances of the two boys that were her family (‘but Hermione, you would make such a good auror! We could go on missions, the three of us together!’), she applied for that year’s healer training program. It was the first decision she had made without doubting herself all year.

It was gruelling hard work, with long hours, exams every six months, and more information than she knew what to do with. She loved it.

Now she was specialising in burns, trauma and injury at St Mungo’s, having found a special infinity in the area, trying to keep fiendfyres and burning buildings as far from her mind as possible. She was finally, maybe, a bit happy and at peace with herself.

She found some happiness in Ron, too. Her mind calmer and stronger than it had been in years, she warmed into their relationship, and when careful kisses turned into careful touches in a bed, she let it happen. He was so kind, and so careful, the friend she had always loved and never wanted to lose. His touches were warm and comforting. She needed warm and comforting, and she accepted it happily.

She found that these days she could laugh more easily, like she used to before everything became so dark and bleak. But then she would look at Harry and Ginny, also warm, comfortable and happy in their relationship, and she would realise she was laughing with her eyes, and not her mouth. Not her heart. Because why didn’t her relationship with Ron look like that, feel like that?

She wasn’t sure, exactly, how to know if she was happy or not. She thought she was, so there she must be.

Sometimes when Ron touched her, she still felt nothing and she hated herself for it.

Harry and Ron passed their auror exams, as she knew they would, and went straight into working in the Auror office. They were often paired together in their missions, much to their delight and that of the wizarding press, who loved to see the two of them, if not all three of them together as much as they could. The Golden Trio, they called them, even now, years later. The paparazzi didn’t make life easier.

She wasn’t allowed to know much of what their missions entailed, but when fieldwork was involved, although she did know they sometimes were involved in hunted the Death Eaters that were still at large, and off shoots of Voldemort’s ideals. It sometimes kept them away for days, even weeks. In those days or weeks, the missing limb feeling came back and she felt like she almost couldn’t breathe, because what if something happened to them and she wasn’t there?

It wasn’t like Hogwarts, where they could send her letters and photographs, because the missions would often need them to ‘go dark’. She hated it as much as Molly Weasley did, but she said nothing. They were happy, and as long as they came back to her, she had her peace of mind and her family.

Sometimes though, it was nice when they weren’t there. She could sleep in on the weekends, Ron’s comforting smell still on the bed but she didn’t need to pretend to feel things when he held her, kissed her. She could just lie there, breathing in his comforting smell, and listening to the rain, knowing that all was well. That despite the nothingness, she was well too.

Harry and Ron’s ‘dark’ missions started happening more and more as they climbed the ranks, and even having time to read all day on weekends or spending time with Ginny, was no longer something she looked forward to. So she began volunteering in grief counselling sessions at St Mungo’s.

These weren’t traditional grief therapy classes, but an incentive set up by the Ministry to help deal with the significant amounts of people who were in need some kind of bereavement following the events of the war. There was so much sadness and loss, and people looked for answers. Hermione knew logically that she could have benefitted from sessions like these herself, but she had people to talk to. She had Harry and Ron.

She didn’t think about the fact that she rarely, if ever, talked about the war to Harry and Ron. They didn’t talk about it with her either.

Hermione wasn’t trained for the proper grief counselling sessions, but she had enough training during her Healer training years that she was allowed to provide a confidential ear to patients who just wanted to talk and be listened to. If she couldn’t heal herself, she could help everyone else.

She could listen.

Listening was sometimes really, really hard. But she also realised she was one of the lucky ones, because some of the things people talked to her about made her realise how much more worse it could’ve been. How much there had been. How much cruelness and unfairness there was in the world.

Sometimes she thought that maybe she wasn’t the right person to be listening and providing comfort to people who had so many horrific things to say, but a lot of them seem to derive comfort in Hermione, one of the golden trio, listening to their stories because they thought she would understand. Some of the people who came to the classes called it the ‘Good Grief Class’ almost humorously, because it made them feel better after they talked. Hermione couldn’t imagine feeling good if she tried to put into words the things that went on in her head. But she did like the name.

Her volunteering for the Good Grief Classes made for good press, it seemed, because it was plastered on the Daily Prophet for a week, extolling her good virtues. It made her cringe, but Ron looked at her with pride in his eyes, and Harry would grasp her shoulder in a warm, proud way, as though she was doing something good. She supposed she was doing something good.

Five years had gone by since the war, and all was well.

Hermione snapped out her reverie, coming back to the present. Ron was still tugging on her nightgown. He had come back home late last night, dragging his feet and smelling of sweat and unwashed socks, from yet another mission. She had been happy to see him, knowing that both the boys would be home for at least a month now doing paperwork, as they often did after the longer, more extensive missions.

‘You know I have to go to work, Ronald’, she said, a smile tugging at her lips. She loved this small moments, when everything was peaceful and routine. When everything made clear sense. ‘Who will keep you in Chudley Cannons tickets?’

Ron scoffed, and let her go. Hermione walked towards their en-suite bathroom, flicking her wand so that her toothbrush stood proudly in the air in front of her, toothpaste already spread on, glass of water at the ready. Again, it was the small things that made her happy.

‘As if I’d ever let you buy the tickets again’, Ron said through the half opened door. ‘Not after you brought the Puddlemere ones by accident that one time’.

Hermione rolled her eyes, her retort smothered by toothpaste. Her love of Quidditch hadn’t exactly flourished in the years that had gone by, but she accepted that it was always going to be a part of her life. She looked out of the bathroom window as she brushed her teeth. That damn fox was nosing around her outdoor flowerpots again.

Hermione quickly got ready, her outfit simple as she would be changing into scrubs when she got to the hospital. Her hair was pulled back and her face was clean and free of makeup. She would never be beautiful, not in the obvious and graceful way that Ginny and Parvati were, their hair naturally slick and long, where hers was curly and sometimes unmanageable, their facial features enhanced by their makeup skills. She had never really known how to do make up well, having spent most of her teenage years surrounded by boys, and never having had a massive affinity for getting on with the girls in their year. She was pretty sure that by their sixth year she had talked more to Malfoy than she had to most of the girls in her dorm.

 _Malfoy_ , she remembered, with a start. She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror, remembering the way he had looked at her in her dream.

She hadn’t thought of him in years, and suddenly he was in her nightmare, and he had just come up in her thoughts now.

After the war, the Malfoys hadn’t fared so well. She didn’t know a lot about it, having always felt strange reading about her ex-classmates in the newspapers. Even hearing Ron or the other Weasleys talking about what had happened to the Malfoys left a weird taste in her mouth. Maybe it was the same for Harry, because he never said anything either.

Lucius Malfoy had been put on trial, and tied by a full Wizengamot court, leading to his imprisonment in Azkaban. Draco Malfoy had been due to be put on trial, when he disappeared without a trace, a phenomenon that seemed to be common amongst the younger Death Eaters.

Only Narcissa had managed to get off lightly, because Harry had (surprisingly, or may be unsurprisingly) testified in court for her, revealing that fact that she had hidden that he was alive in those last few hours, ultimately leading to Voldemort’s downfall. Harry was like a shiny coin in those early days after the war. Whatever he said was golden, and the whole court was sold.

The Malfoy family fortune was confiscated and held indefinitely by the Ministry, with Narcissa receiving a comfortable, if limited, allowance. She was housebound to Malfoy Manor for two years. It was more than anyone else linked to the Death Eaters had managed to get.

No one said a word when Harry randomly mentioned one day that he and Narcissa kept in contact, and Hermione had seen her letters arrive by owl. There really wasn’t anything to say.

Late at night one night, when Ron was snoring next to her, she wondered what it felt like to have your world turned upside down like that, to have your family next to you one day, and ripped from you the next. Her husband in Azkaban, maybe to receive the dementor’s kiss one day. Her son lost to her.

Hermione was grateful for her family, and she held on to that feeling as she looked in the mirror, seeing more than herself.

She was running late.

She grabbed her bag, reminding herself to grab a cereal bar from the kitchen before leaving the house.

But before she could leave the bedroom, Ron got up sleepily and wrapped his arms around her waist, his chest and stomach melded to her back, his mouth on her neck.

‘Don’t forget to come to mum’s after work today’, he mumbled into her neck, between kisses. ‘She keeps telling me to remind you not to be late, she’s cooking her pot roast.’

The Weasleys had a full family gathering every Friday evening, the entire family descending on their parental home like a flock of sheep. Contrary to what some might think, both her and Harry loved these gatherings, and the sheer loud, boisterousness of it, that took years to rebuild after Fred’s death.

‘I won’t forget’, Hermione promised, and kissed his arm carefully, turning round to hug him.

He felt cold, like marble.

*************

Hermione finished work exhausted to her bones, but happy. She changed out of her scrubs and into the jeans she wore beneath her robes, smiling as the pockets started warming up slightly. She knew it was the Protean charmed gallon from the DA days at Hogwarts- she, Harry and Ron still used it sometimes, mostly in jest, and she knew its insistent burning was Ron telling her to _hurry up, the food will be gone before you get here._

She waved goodbye to Parvati, who had been working with her for the last year.

Parvati had married shortly after the war and decided not to work, but then abruptly left her husband three years later and joined the Healer training program. She was in her first year of specialisation, and had yet to pick an area, but was doing a year in Hermione’s department.

Hermione had been happy for the familiar and friendly face. Parvati had mostly been one of the girls that had been kind to Hermione in school, at least to her face. While they weren’t the best of friends, they had a comfortable comradery, and it wasn’t hard to make conversation with Parvati.

Hermione apparated just outside the wards of Molly and Arthur’s home. No matter what anyone said, slipping through the wards protecting the house always felt like- well, like butter. Easy and good, like she belonged there.

Ron was already eating, as usual.

Hermione let the sound of the Weasleys bustling around, talking loudly over each other, melt into her mind. She felt peace, and in these moments, she felt _happy_.

Her exhaustion became a background noise against the warm buzzing of everything else. She caught Harry’s eye, who was sitting beside Ginny as usual at the table, and he grinned.

He looked happy, she thought, and her heart swelled. No matter how many years went by, she couldn’t, and wouldn’t let go of this feeling, this- contentment? She felt content when she could see her friends-her family- thriving and happy. Harry deserved to be happy, more than anyone, including her.

She accepted a quick hug from Ginny and Molly, a warm nod from Arthur who was busy in conversation with Percy, and smiling as she walked past Bill and Fleur to grab a plate. Then she sat down next to Ron, who grinned at her in the way that always pulled painfully at something inside her. He kissed her, smelling of meat and weirdly, mothballs.

She ate, Ron and Harry alternatively piling more food on her plate, and watched as Fleur fussed over the cut of Bill’s meat, Molly looking on at them with annoyance. She looked at George who still sometimes looked like he was missing half his body and not just his ear. Ginny buzzed excitedly at Harry’s arm, pretty as ever, her face glowing in a way that Hermione (although she would never admit it) envied.

Harry scratched his head and grinned at Ginny, both of then standing up. George flicked a piece of newspaper, which he seemed to have conjured out of nowhere, at them both. Hermione laughed, and nearly swallowed one of the newspaper pieces as it flew into her mouth accidentally. George guffawed at her, and she grinned good-naturedly as she pulled it out, un-scrunching the paper.

Daphne Greengrass’s face looked back at her, and she recalled yesterday’s Daily Prophet front page, detailing her sudden and meteoric rise to the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, beyond that of Harry, who had been expected to rise to the position, despite the youth of both the witch and the wizard. Conspiracies were rife, what with Daphne being from an old pureblood family with connections, and there were people that said that some things had not changed despite the Second War. They said she had the minister’s ear, and did his job as well as her own. Hermione scrunched up the paper again and dropped it on the table.

Harry looked adorably awkward.

‘Er’, he started, as Ginny magicked the pieces of newspaper back at George, accidentally hitting Arthur instead. ‘George, stop that- we need to- Ginny don’t poke me with your wand! Everyone, Ginny and I, er want to make an announcement’.

Everyone went silent at the same time, leaving an eerie din that made Hermione automatically feel a bit panicked.

Her palms started sweating. Was Harry alright? He looked healthy enough and he seemed happy. Was it Ginny? What weren’t they saying?’

Molly screamed, the sound making Hermione jump violently. Ron looked at her for a second, looking concerned, but Hermione shook her head.

‘You’re pregnant!’, Molly said, her voice shrilly. ‘I can tell, I can! Ginny, I knew you looked a bit bloated this morning-’.

‘Mum! It’s not that’, Ginny interrupted, her face red as her hair. She looked down, a hand on her stomach. ‘Do I really look bloated?’

But no one was paying attention as they zoned in on the ring on her left hand. Hermione felt cold.

‘We’re getting married, actually’, Harry said redundantly, his hand still in his hair, making it a bigger mess than usual. He grinned at Ginny again. ‘We’ll get working on the other thing’.

Ginny slapped his arm, blushing, and the whole room exploded. Ron stood and hugged Harry, although Hermione could tell by his behaviour that Harry had confided in him. Neither of them had said a word to Hermione.

The whole family was surrounded the couple, Fleur and Molly inspecting Ginny’s engagement ring, the men taking turns to rib Harry. Harry turned and smiled at Hermione, who had still been sitting down, processing everything. His smile dimmed.

‘Hermione?’, he said, tentatively.

Hermione shook out of whatever fugue she had fallen into, and blinked at him, smiling quickly.

‘I’m’, Hermione breathed in quickly. ‘I’m so happy for you. Sorry, I’m just surprised. I didn’t see it coming’.

‘You must be the only one, ‘Mione’, Ron said, standing next to her. ‘But I suppose I did know already for a bit’.

Hermione looked up at him, wondering why they hadn’t thought to tell her. Harry was still looking at her pensively.

‘I wanted to tell you too’, Harry said, as though he had read her mind. ‘It’s just- I thought- maybe you’d think it was a bit fast’.

She did think it was a bit fast. They were in their early twenties, just starting to figure life out. At the beginning of their careers, at the beginning of everything, too soon to be setting up concrete plans like _being married._

Ginny and Harry has been dating for five years, it was true, and they had dated for half a year during sixth year. But Hermione still felt like a piece of lead was stuck in her throat.

She swallowed it.

‘It is a bit fast’, she said, laughing a bit nervously. ‘But you and Ginny are old enough to know what you, I suppose’.

They were so young. Too young. Why was this making her freak out so much?

Ginny was tugging at her arm, all smiles and prettiness. Harry looked down at her fondly.

‘It’ll be your turn next’, Ginny said softly. Ron started shuffling next to her. Harry laughed, looking pointedly at Ron, and Hermione followed his line of sight.

Ron was looking at her, with the same fond expression she had just seen Harry look at Ginny with.

Hermione felt sick.

She wasn’t- she wasn’t ready-

They were so _young._

She looked down. ‘I need some water’, she said to Ginny, a fake smile painted on her face as she walked away from them, a coldness filling her chest.

‘You embarrassed her, Gin’, Harry admonished, and Ginny was staring at her as she walked, she knew.

Hermione walked into the empty kitchen, her back on the noise and happiness of the Weasleys, her hands gripped on the kitchen sink as the water ran and ran and ran.

*****************

When they went home that night to their home, Hermione had sex with Ron.

He had given in quite quickly, eagerly, returning her kisses and touches readily, hands on her shoulders, her arms, her waist.

Despite the slap-dash and carefree way he handled everything else in his life, Ron was always gentle with her. Sometimes, she wished he wouldn’t be, because maybe then it would be easier.

She kissed him feverishly, swallowing her frustration as he slowed down her caresses. He moved solidly and rhythmically above her, each stroke pushing her slowly towards something, but not quite where she wanted.

She wished she could stop thinking. She wished she knew what she was supposed to feel when he was being so kind, so gentle, and so much like her _friend_.

She wondered why she still called him her friend in her head, and not her boyfriend, because that was what he was. One day he would propose to her, heart in his throat, and she wouldn’t know what to say to her friend other than _I think there’s something wrong with me because I can’t love you the way you love me. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC.
> 
> The next part is already written, and i intend to post every Wednesday, unless i say otherwise. Comments and kudos will always be adored, but please no negative comments, as that is what stopped me writing in the first place. I love discussion, but any criticism other than glaring typos- I would prefer it if you kept them out of the comments. Thank you. 
> 
> Hermione's emotions and thought processes here took me ages to write. In this story she has at least moderate PTSD and resulting anxiety and depressive issues, which i can imagine being canon, but is also largely in denial of them. The descriptions are based largely on some of the things i have experienced but are not all-encompassing of every person's experience of the disorders, just my own, and by extension the characters i write. I wanted to just point this out, as some of the decisions she makes, and other characters make may not sound healthy or just, but in the end just confused and screwed up, like humans can be.


	2. 2. Nothingness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘They have the Mark, ‘Mione’, Ron said shortly. ‘They’re Death Eaters. Once they have that thing on their arm, there’s nothing else they can be.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As stated in the last chapter, this is a dark story with dark themes. Includes descriptions of mental illness, descriptions of graphic violence and abuse, unhealthy relationships. Please heed the warnings and the tags, and please always read this author’s note before starting to read. The behaviours and actions of the characters in this story are not ones to be emulated and author does not endorse them in any way. I just want to write a story about the darker side of human emotion, where not everything is black and white, and the moral compass doesn’t always run due north. Both Hermione and Malfoy are not good, clean-cut characters. They make bad, unhealthy and sometimes irrational decisions. If any of these things worry you or seem triggery, please do not read this story. 
> 
> I meant to publish this chapter next Wednesday, but I’m moving my posting schedule around a bit.
> 
> Also, I should point out, as much as I do love the actress that played Narcissa Malfoy in the movie, I’m going more by the HP books, and Narcissa looks a bit different in my head because of that. Just a note.
> 
> Song inspiration: Freeze You Out by Marina Kaye.

**CHAPTER TWO: NOTHINGNESS**

The next day was Saturday, which meant it was time for Good Grief Class.

When Ron was home he hated that she spent most of her weekend working even more. But that day he simply returned her kiss goodbye before she was about to leave, sleepy and content.

The weather was windy outside, and Hermione was glad she had thrown a scarf around her neck before leaving, burying her nose into it. The air was still dewy, the way it always was early in the morning. She apparated to the apparition point a ten minute walk away from St Mungo’s. There was an apparition point closer to the hospital, in the other direction, and the one all her colleagues took. But Hermione didn’t mind the ten minute walk, and savoured the time alone to collect her thoughts before walk.

 _It was a nice day even if it is windy_ , she thought, as tendrils of her hair came loose from where she had tied her hair in a tight bun. She walked carefully past the foxes she always saw scuttling around that time in the morning, marvelling at the sky, clear and blue, the clouds thin and sparse. It was rare the sky was ever that clear this time of year in England, and she turned her head towards the sun, as if trying to soak up all the faint rays of warmth she could get.

It seemed like Hermione had managed to reach the hospital early, as she nearly always did, as the classroom St Mungo’s set aside for the sessions was still mostly empty. She removed her coat and scarf, and smiled at Neville, who was using his wand to set up the room alongside some of the other volunteers.

He gave her a brief wave and smiled back with ease, and Hermione walked over to help him set up. Neville Longbottom had been volunteering in the Good Grief classes longer than Hermione had, and she had never really got round to asking him how he came to be involved with the classes. Neville wasn’t a healer, or in training to be one. In fact, he been specially selected by Professor Sprout to undertake a Herbology apprenticeship at Hogwarts. Hermione knew he would eventually take over Professor Sprout’s role, when she retired. She was happy for Neville, who had always seemed to have a natural affinity and understanding of magical plants.

It still didn’t explain how he had come to volunteer, and been allowed to do so, but Neville never offered an explanation, and something told Hermione he didn’t want her to ask. She was fine with that. Neville was always friendly with her, as he had been in school, and seemed to be thriving in a way he had never done before the war. But sometimes she would catch him zoning out the room, seeing something beyond it, looking utterly lost.

If she was to tell the truth, it was just easier not to ask.

The time for the class to begin came and went, and the room was bustling with people.

Hermione had been surprised when she had found that she actually knew some of the people that attended the classes. Hannah Abbott had been one person she hadn’t really expected to see again- she hadn’t come back for eighth year, and Hermione had honestly not really given the Hufflepuff any extra thought, until she turned up one day out of the blue.

At first Hermione kept her distance, because Hannah looked disturbed and slightly freaked out to see her, and Hermione didn’t want her to pass up the opportunity to talk, to get help, because of her. Hannah had been coming to the classes for six months now, and after a few months of talking to some other people, including Neville, Hannah had come to Hermione herself.

She had talked to Hermione for the last three months almost solely, and Hermione didn’t really understand why.

Hannah had lost her entire family during the war- first her parents, then her siblings. Hermione couldn’t even begin to understand what it must feel like to lose your entire family like that, and the idea scared her more than she would ever admit. She listened to Hannah, who didn’t always want to directly talk about her family, but anything from her job to her love of flowers. Hermione didn’t always know what to say, but it seemed like a lot of the people that came derived some comfort from just talking to her, and Hannah seemed to be one of them.

‘Sometimes I wish I could just run away’, Hannah told her in that day’s session. ‘Like, I had the perfect opportunity, you know? No one to hold me back, no one to have to consider in my plans. Like an adventure.’

She looked lost for a moment, blinked at Hermione, and then stared past her shoulder.

Hermione looked down at her cup of tea, remembering how Trelawney had tried- in vain- to teach her to read the tea leaves.

‘Why didn’t you?’, Hermione asked, curiously.

Hannah shrugged, her eyes focussing on Hermione again.

‘You can never really run away, can you?’, she said. ‘Because you don’t know what will happen next. There might be nothing left, but you just- you just hope, don’t you? You can’t really run away from who you are, the things that have happened to you, and what you want’.

‘What is it you want, Hannah?’, Hermione asked her. Hannah looked past Hermione’s shoulder again, her eyes focussed.

‘I don’t really know’, Hannah said, wistfully. ‘Maybe just someone to hold me back’.

Hermione said nothing, and just sipped her tea. Later that evening, she remembered hearing Neville’s soft and deep voice, almost soothing as he talked to someone else just behind her shoulder.

************

Life carried on, and it was mostly peaceful and uneventful, like a dull murmur. Ron forgot to buy bread, so Hermione had to make do with cereal. Something was wrong with the charm on the radio, because Celestina Warbeck was playing on repeat. The fox with the silver streak was digging at her flower pots again. Hermione couldn’t find her purple socks. She tried to make Molly’s pumpkin soup one day for dinner, and it tasted like mud.

She loved the utter mundaneness of it, the stresslessness of it.

In fact, the most strange and eventful thing to happen in the next week was for Narcissa Malfoy to turn up at Good Grief Class, looking totally out of place, and as aristocratic as it was possible to look without being royalty.

She sat on one of the plastic chairs away from nearly everybody else, talking quietly to Neville, of all people, her silvery blonde hair swept back and her robes folded neatly around her. She looked positively ethereal and so serenely beautiful.

A stark contrast to the hustle and restlessness of the rest of the room, with its undercurrent of depression and loss in the air.

Hermione snapped herself out of the reverie she had fallen into, nodding and smiling softly at Neville as she always did at the start of the class. He waved back, but then turned back to Narcissa, saying something in response to her question. Narcissa was looking at her, her expression guarded and careful, even as she addressed Neville.

For the remainder of the class, Hermione felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, an eerie awareness that someone was watching her, in a way she hadn’t felt since she had been hunting Horcruxes. She didn’t like it.

Narcissa didn’t show any intentions of approaching her, to say anything to her at all. She just stared, even when she knew Hermione could see her. It didn’t sit right with the rest of her graceful and guarded behaviour, and her eyes were dark and watchful, like a fox.

The class ended. Hermione stayed behind to help tidy up. She started levitating the chairs into stacks, pushing them to the back of the room.

When she turned around, Narcissa was a few steps behind her, and Hermione felt strangely irritated.

‘Can I help you?’, Hermione said, trying to keep her irritation off her face.

She didn’t know why this matriarch of the Malfoy family pushed her out of sorts so much, why there was an undercurrent of….of something, she didn’t know what.

Maybe it was because she could see another person in the woman’s features, a shadow of the boy who had sneered at her every time she had come into his line of sight, the feel of his nose breaking as her fist met his face. The way he would say _Mudblood_ like she was something rank beneath his shoe. The way he had made her feel like she was masquerading in a world she didn’t belong, a limbo of a person between two worlds. An oddity in both, wanted by neither.

But most of all, she remembered look of despair on his face when he realised Crabbe was dead, the numbness in his features after the war was over. The horror on his face in her nightmare.

Narcissa was still looking at her, her face twisted as though she was in pain.

She walked away abruptly, without saying anything. Hermione looked on after her.

 _How about a thank you for saving your son’s life twice,_ Hermione thought bitterly. _At least you still have your son even if you can’t see him, unlike Molly Weasley._

She didn’t know why she felt so certain that Malfoy was still alive, out there somewhere.

**********

‘I’m sorry’, Narcissa said firmly.

It was Sunday, and Hermione looked up with surprise from where she had been readying the room for that day’s Good Grief Class, picking up a few old newpapers that had been scattered around the room, folding them one by one. Daphne Greengrass and her family waved at her from the front page. Hermione magicked the papers to the bin on the other side of the room, and then blinked, unsure what to say back.

‘I’m sorry’, Narcissa repeated. ‘I have been very rude. You might remember me. I’m Narcissa Black Malfoy. Draco Malfoy’s mother.’

Hermione didn’t know why she was introducing herself, as if she was someone forgettable. She didn’t mention where Hermione might remember her from, but she was surprised by how easily she mentioned her son’s name, seeing as it had been dragged through the mud for so long, alongside her husband’s.

‘I know’, Hermione said, nonplussed.

Narcissa smiled at her, looking like someone who was deeply uncomfortable, but too polite to wallow in it.

‘I was hoping I would get a chance to talk to you’, Narcissa continued. ‘I know….that we didn’t part on the best of terms. I wished to say apologise.’

Hermione felt wrong-footed, and oddly embarrassed.

‘You don’t have to apologise for anything, Mrs Malfoy’, Hermione said, slowly. ‘You didn’t- we didn’t- it wasn’t you that-‘

_You weren’t the Black sister that tortured me._

‘I was meaning to speak to you last week’, Narcissa said, smiling sadly. ‘But, frankly, I lost my nerve. I have been meaning to speak to you for years, you see.’

Hermione really, really didn’t know what to say, feeling awkward and somehow sorry for the woman. After all, she didn’t have anyone now, her husband in prison and her son exiled Merlin knew where.

‘You don’t have anything to apologise for, Mrs Malfoy’, Hermione said. ‘You didn’t do anything to me’.

‘But we answer for the sins of our family, do we not?’, Narcissa said, smiling without mirth.

_No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood, Malfoy had said, sneering at her._

‘I guess we do’, Hermione answered, looking at her. Narcissa moved towards her, and then stopped as though she was thinking better of it. She looked distressed.

‘I’m sorry for every upset my family has ever caused you’, Narcissa said. ‘My husband, my son….my sister’.

Hermione gulped, nodding.

‘I…it’s fine’, Hermione said, wanting to say so much, but realising it would change nothing. It wouldn’t take the bruises away from her mind, the words etched on her brain, the images of people she loved suffering. Hermione found she couldn’t look at the woman anymore.

‘You saved Harry’, Hermione said, finally. ‘That’s more than enough apology.’

‘You’re very kind’, Narcissa said. ‘But it’s you I need to apologise to’.

Hermione was confused.

‘But why? You haven’t done anything to me’. Hermione repeated.

Narcissa just looked at her, swaying slightly on the spot.

‘If I may say so’, Narcissa said hesitantly, as though she was trying not to express too much emotion. ‘You are looking quite peaky. Perhaps you should take a few days off from the class.’

Hermione started, taken back by the sudden change in subject.

‘I feel fine’, Hermione said, more confused than ever. ‘I’m not unwell.’

‘Nevertheless, it might befit you to take a few weekends off’, Narcissa said, expressionless. ‘You work too much.’

Before Hermione could say anything back, the woman walked around her and out of the room, as abruptly as the other day.

**********

After that, Hermione felt more bereft than she had felt in a long time, that week. It was one of those weeks when she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she was stuck in the past, just whirling the same thoughts around and around in her head. That she was watching her own life from an outside view.

It was all Narcissa Malfoy’s fault.

Hermione knew Harry kept in contact with her, owls arriving every month, sometimes from Malfoy Manor, sometimes from France, where Narcissa seemed to frequent a lot, guessing by the postmarks and how often she used European owls. Sometimes Hermione would catch Harry smiling when one of her letters was plopped on top of his breakfast toast. He seemed happy with put the past in the past, and carry on.

Hermione, try as she might, couldn’t. So she clung onto the things she understood and the people she knew.

The truth was the Malfoy’s reminded her of everything bad that had happened to her, reminded her that the world could be a cruel place. It was a lot to put on the shoulders of one family, of three people, and maybe they didn’t deserve it all. After all, she knew in the end, all they cared about was their family and not Voldemort’s twisted ideals. She knew they had suffered, where suffering for their actions.

But she couldn’t help it.

Maybe there was something wrong with her, but she felt more when she thought about the Malfoys than she did when looked at Harry, at Ron, at the Weasleys. Even if it was gut-wrenching, vomit-inducing something, something she couldn’t explain. Anger, maybe, but at what she didn’t know. Sadness, sometimes, she thought. Frustration, because she didn’t know why she still felt these things, and why just seeing Narcissa’s face made her made her want to weep on the floor helplessly.

Because she wasn’t helpless and she wasn’t alone, and she had done everything she could possibly do to ensure that.

So Hermione kept up her routine, because routine made her feel more sure-footed, in the days she wasn’t sure about anything.

She would kiss Ron goodbye, slip quietly out of the house, watch the fox scuttling around her front yard, freezing whenever it saw her, the foxes always did when they suddenly saw humans. She would apparate a ten minute walk away from work. She would go to her ward, change into her scrubs, and check who she had to see that day.

Then she would go home, kiss Ron, who would’ve made dinner. Sometimes they would go out to eat, and they would meet Harry and Ginny for dinner at least a couple of times a week, outside of the Weasley gatherings.

Then she would go home, hug Ron tightly as he slept, willing herself to sleep without dreaming.

The dreams always came. Sometimes it was Bellatrix and the bone-crushing pain, sometimes Hogwarts was burning.

Sometimes Dobby was lying in Harry’s sobbing arms, or Ron was screaming, splinched and broken.

Lupin and Tonks, dead, their fingers inches away from each other, never ever to get closer.

Sometimes she would see her parents looking at her, happy she had come to visit them, only for their faces to become blank and unknowing as she oblivated them. She had thought then that one day she would come back, that she could get her parents back again. But she had done the job too well, their memories gone forever.

She didn’t want to think about it. If she thought about it then she wouldn’t be able to breathe.

So routine. Routine was good.

**********

Things were just going back to normal, when that Friday Narcissa turned up again. But this time in her ward at St Mungo’s with a third-degree burn on her lower arm, biting her lip and her eyes moving wildly with the effort of hiding the pain.

Hermione stared for a second, and then immediately flew into action, examining the wound.

‘What happened?’, she asked

Narcissa looked close to tears. There was something disconcerting about seeing someone so controlled, so serene, looking distressed and as human as she did. Tears clung to her eyelashes, and Hermione found herself thinking that it was unfair that even in pain, the woman somehow managed to look regal.

‘An accident’, Narcissa bit out. ‘I- I dropped a potion on myself that I shouldn’t, something I shouldn’t have meddled with-‘

‘Do you remember what the name of the potion was?’, Hermione asked, motioning at Parvati to get the dittany solution. Hermione started preparing the Murtlap essence, thinking that the type of burn Narcissa had could’ve required skin grafts or more in the Muggle world, but would probably require much less here in at St Mungo’s.

Narcissa pursed her lips, her eyes glistening, before she closed them firmly. She hadn’t looked at Hermione once since she had come.

‘I don’t remember’, Narcissa said. ‘I didn’t read the label.’

Hermione had a lot of questions she wanted to ask, the vagueness of the woman’s answers piquing her curiosity. But Narcissa just looked so upset, her calm exterior in shatters, and Hermione knew she didn’t want to talk. People shouldn’t have to talk if they didn’t want to.

‘That’s fine’, Hermione said, trying to sound soothing. She took the dittany solution from Parvati’s hands gratefully, and begun applying it. ‘I think the wound is worse than it looks. It should be fine. Would you like something for the pain?’

When Hermione looked up again, Narcissa was looking at her, tears still in her ears.

‘You look unwell, dear’, Narcissa said, her voice wavering. ‘You should really take some time off’.

Hermione was dumb-found. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it.

‘Mrs Malfoy, I am quite well’, Hermione reassured her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

Narcissa smiled. Suddenly she looked lost. Like Neville, like Hannah.

‘No there isn’t’, Narcissa agreed. ‘Just with everything else. Can you just promise me one thing? Simply one thing?’

Hermione felt completely bewildered at the strangeness of the woman’s behaviour, and didn’t know the right thing to say. She nodded.

‘Can you promise me you won’t go to the grief counselling sessions this weekend?’, Narcissa pleaded. Hermione didn’t know how else to read it, other than pleading.

‘Why?’, Hermione asked, surprised.

‘Just this one week’, Narcissa said. ‘Please…just trust me on this and don’t ask me anything else, because I can’t bear it. Can you swear to me you will not go?’

‘I-I…I always go Mrs Malfoy’, Hermione said. ‘I don’t know if I should-‘

‘Swear it!’, Narcissa said, moving to hold one of Hermione’s hands, the one dabbing dittany solution onto her wounded arm. Her blonde hair had come loose from its upswept hairstyle, framing her face, her eyes shiny. ‘Swear it to me!.’

Hermione felt like her insides were shaking.

‘Okay’, Hermione said finally. ‘Okay I won’t go tomorrow.’

This seemed to calm the older woman down, because she closed her mouth and her eyes, bowing her head. She breathed deeply. Then slowly, she pulled Hermione’s hand some more, resting her forehead on it.

‘Thank you’, Narcissa whispered. Hermione could feel her weeping. ‘I’m so sorry it’s come to this.’

Hermione looked on at the woman bowing over her hand, finding it hard to believe this was a woman from one of the oldest pure-blooded families, married to another one that prided itself on being above people like Hermione, a mere muggle-born. She looked up to see Parvati staring at them, and Hermione looked at her, shaking her head.

‘It’s okay’, Hermione said, uncertainly, patting Narcissa’s shoulder with her other hand. ‘Everything is okay.’

*********

The thing is, Hermione had intended to listen to her. Not because it made sense to her, or because she was scared that something was going to happen. But simply because if someone came to you bowing and pleading you to do this one thing for them, you couldn’t ignore it.

But then Ron got called on a mission.

‘But you just got back!’, Hermione exclaimed. She had finished work a bit early and had come early to get ready for the weekly Friday Weasley gathering, wanting to go at the same time as Ron for once. ‘You haven’t even finishing writing up the last one!’

Ron had already started packing his bag.

‘I know, ‘Mione, I don’t like it any more than you’, he said, apologetically, picking up a pair of socks, sniffing it and frowning. ‘Harry’s the lead- if you want to blame anyone, blame him. But if you ask me, maybe he’s right because there’s something weird going on…’

Hermione frowned at his cryptic words. Ron might have to be careful with what he could tell her about his missions, but he was rarely ever _that_ vague.

‘What do you mean weird?’, Hermione asked, confused. Ron just shook his head.

‘I dunno really’, Ron said. ‘There’s been a bit of Death Eater action in the North, but it’s hard to know what they’re…’

Hermione felt cold. ‘Death Eater action? What could they possibly want now, when Voldemort is gone?’

Ron continued packing his bag, messily pushing in some jeans, and a shirt. Hermione would have tried to fix it, would have fretted about it, if she hadn’t been concentrating on what he was saying. Or not saying.

‘Well, that’s exactly it, we don’t know’, Ron said.

‘Are they trying to revive Voldemort’s old ideals?’, Hermione asked.

‘No, we don’t think so’, Ron said, slowly, frowning again and looking at her.

‘Then how do you know they’re Death Eaters exactly?’, Hermione said. ‘If Voldemort is gone and there’s nothing left for them to achieve, then are they Death Eaters anymore? Aren’t they just….criminals?’

Ron gave her a look.

‘They have the Mark, ‘Mione’, he said shortly. ‘They’re Death Eaters. Once they have that thing on their arm, there’s nothing else they can be.’

He zipped his work bag, dropping it on the floor, and walked over to Hermione.

‘C’mon’, he said, kissing her head. ‘Mum’ll be waiting.’

‘I was going to take the day off’, Hermione said, moving away. The cold swept in between them. ‘What will I do tomorrow now?’

Ron grinned down at her.

‘You could always help Ginny start the wedding planning,’ he said, shrugging.

Hermione scowled.

***********

‘I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Hermione’, Harry said, cutting into his second treacle tart.

Since they had announced the wedding, Molly had been pointedly cooking most of Harry’s favourites, and it was the second week running of cottage pie and treacle tarts.

‘All I can say solidly is that the ex-Death Eater we were keeping tags on from our last mission has-well, basically they’re on our radar again and they’re behaving ….oddly. Harry continued, between bites, not looking too concerned. ‘Daphne wants us to go check it out.’

The Auror Office answered directly to the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, and therefore Daphne Greengrass.

Hermione dropped her spoon.

‘Which Death Eater is it?’, Hermione asked. ‘Can you tell me that?’

Harry looked at her hesitantly, swallowing a spoonful of tart.

‘I shouldn’t, really,’, Harry said darkly. ‘But it’s Theodore Nott.’

Hermione felt cold. She moved uncomfortably in her chair, feeling cold in the warm room.

‘I don’t like it, it doesn’t sound safe’, Hermione said, her voice more petulant than she would’ve liked. ‘You both just got back. I’ve barely seen you, Harry.’

Harry smiled at her kindly, the kind of smile that reminded her of Honeydukes chocolate or warm butterbeer. He grasped her hand.

‘We will be back before you know it’, He reassured her. ‘I’ll bring Ron back in one piece’.

‘And yourself’, She said sternly, and then broke into a smile to match his.

‘And myself’, Harry promised, as Ron sat down next Hermione, swiping a big bite of her treacle tart with the spoon she had dropped.

*****

It was the early hours of the morning, only a few hours since Ron has left, but the house already felt so empty. She couldn’t remember what she used to do with her weekends before Good Grief Classes had started taking over them. She could go visit Molly and Arthur, but she had just seen them yesterday. She could go and see George at Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes. She could help Ginny with the wedding planning.

She definitely couldn’t help Ginny with the wedding planning. Even thinking about weddings made her palms sweat.

Crookshanks jumped on top of the bedcovers, and sat on Hermione’s lap, a soft purr dulling the vibrating silence of the room. Her palms were sweating as she stroked absent-mindedly at his fur.

There was nothing wrong with spending time alone on the weekends. She used to love it, reading to her heart’s content, curled up under the covers, a warm cup of tea ready on the bedside table.

Hermione had no problem with doing nothing. It was just too quiet, she didn’t like it. She was used to the Weasleys and their incessant noise, her patients and their complaints. They were loud and buzzing, which Hermione found comforting, but without any sudden loud noises, which she didn’t like either.

Hermione didn’t even realise she was shaking until Crookshanks had climbed off her and stretched on the floor. She looked at him, and then straight ahead, seeing nothing.

She started getting dressed.

******

Hermione hadn’t actually sworn that she wouldn’t go in that day. She had just simply said that she wouldn’t.

She knew she was just grasping at straws now, but she just couldn’t sit at home and stare at nothing, she just couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t.

So she had pulled on her coat, grabbed her bag and apparated to her usual spot. She began walking to St Mungo’s, still thinking about Narcissa Malfoy’s words.

_Swear to me you won’t go._

Hermione couldn’t figure it out. Perhaps she found Hermione’s presence at the Good Grief Classes awkward, her being who she is and Hermione being Hermione. But Hermione could keep her distance. She had no interest in who had done what in the past.

So why did she feel so uneasy?

It’s only since the talk with Narcissa that she had been feeling like this. She had been feeling better, doing better. _Happy_ , even, she thought, maybe even that. She still felt nothing most of the time, but that was better than whatever this uncomfortable, twisting feeling was.

She had done so well to make sure she felt nothing.

She stood still for a moment, clenching her fists, her eyes closed.

_Freeze it out, Hermione._

She opened her eyes. Breathed in deeply. She put one foot in front of the other, and then stopped.

Frowned.

A fox was standing in front of her, about two metres away, one of the ones she usually saw during her walk to work.

Only-

She looked carefully at it, the way it swayed from side to side, it’s head tipped slightly to the side, like a human.

It had a silver streak on its side, sleek and paler than the usual red foxes she knew inhabited the area.

_Wasn’t this the fox that was always outside her house? How many foxes in England looked like that? If it was the same one how did it get here, miles away-_

But before Hermione could move, could think, the fox was gone. There was a sudden pain on the side of her head, and she was falling, falling, falling.

‘ _Stupefy_ ’, she thought she heard someone say.

Hermione opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

And then there was nothing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC.
> 
> The next chapter is already written up, but should be posted this time next week. I just had to get this chapter out earlier than I thought.  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated, but please be kind.


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